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PM’s message on I-Day

Ever since he became Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has scrupulously observed one rule: to be always on the right side of the Constitution and the law, while the front organizations of the Sangh Parivar would go on doing their job. Modi would condemn cow vigilantism and say that none had the right to take the law in their own hands but do nothing to stay the hands of the wrong-doers. His Independence Day speech is noticeable for speaking on three subjects on which what he said runs counter to what the Sangh Parivar has been doing since 2014.
Modi has reminded the people of the Champaran Satyagraha and the Quit Inida movement in neither of which the RSS or its affiliates took part. In fact the RSS was opposed to the freedom movement. Secondly, while recalling the legacy of the Bharat Chodo (Quit India) movement, he has emphasized the need of Bharat Jodo. This is unexceptionable and laudable. But the problem is that all the outfits of the Sangh Parivar are indulging in activities that can only accelerate the tempo of Bharat Todo (break India) by targeting sections of people on account of their religion or language or food habits or culture. Thirdly, he has asserted that there should be no tolerance of violence in the name of religion. But this is going on all over the country and neither the Centre nor States ruled by the BJP has done anything that can effectively dissuade those engaging or inciting violence in the name of religion.
Fourthly, and this is the most important one, he has said that the Kashmir problem can be solved neither with gaali (abusing the Kashmiris) nor goli (hitting them with bullets) but by embracing them. In practice, however, the policy of the Centre and the security forces under it and the media sympathetic to or influenced by the Sangh Parivar ideology, are doing just the reverse. There is no attempt at understanding the extent of alienation felt by the people of Kashmir and identifying its causes. The security forces continue to do what they are meant to do, namely, to apply force on the agitating Kashmiris. It is a self-defeating process because the more the people of Kashmir are at the receiving end of the security forces, the more and the quicker the alienation spreads. Every attempt at ‘embracing’ the Kashmiris, that is, holding talks with various sections of them, including those branded as secessionists or separatist, is ridiculed, lampooned and condemned. The Prime Minister has to ensure that others fall in line with his avowed policies.